​To my readers and my colleagues, after three extraordinary years covering Michigan football and basketball, it’s with a heavy heart that I announce this will be my last week at SB Nation’s Maize n Brew. If my writing hasn’t already made it obvious, Maize and Blue runs through my veins. My father, a Michigan alumnus, handed me one simple creed: root for Michigan. I never questioned it. I shed tears of joy when Trey Burke buried the shot against Kansas in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. I yelled for an hour straight when Jordan Poole became a Michigan legend in 2018 against Houston. And I dropped to my knees in heartbreak when J.T. Barrett’s run fell short against Ohio State, only for the referees to see it differently.
When I got to the University of Michigan, it felt like the greatest day of my life, but I could never have imagined that working for Maize n Brew would bless me with more than I dreamed. By the end of my sophomore year, I’d already been immersed in sports reporting. I rode the baseball beat for The Michigan Daily, frequently broadcast on WCBN-FM in Ann Arbor and on Big Ten Network Plus, and I completed an internship with NBC Sports. After experiencing many facets of sports media, I realized my true calling was writing.
A week before my junior year began, the WCBN station manager called: Von Lozon needed a writer. Maize n Brew had just lost a writer a week before football season, and Von needed someone ASAP to fill the role before Jim Harbaugh would speak to the press seven days later. It felt like fate. I jumped at the chance, and a few days later I found myself in front of Harbaugh, in a room full of veteran journalists, asking what they believed the ceiling could be for Team 144.
Over the next three years, I tasted every journalist’s dream. I witnessed more highs than I could have imagined, reporting from the press box for two national championships (football and men’s basketball) and penning game recaps as confetti fluttered onto my childhood teams. I also bore witness to Michigan Athletics’ lows, and there were plenty: an undefeated football season shadowed by questions about a cheating scandal that led to Harbaugh’s suspension, an empty Crisler Center two months after an 8-24 season while a Michigan icon, Juwan Howard, fought to keep a smile on his face, and my role as the lead in covering the Sherrone Moore legal matter, untangling and analyzing a complex situation no athletic department hopes to navigate.
What will stay with me most are the moments between the chaos. I built relationships with players and coaches, uncovered stories no one else was telling—and even explored angles that helped readers see a broader picture, such as the House.